A Room without a Roof

I rang the doorbell and waited. And waited. I pressed my ear up against the door and listened for the sound of voices or footsteps. Nothing. I held the doorbell down, longer this time. Still nothing.

"What the fuck, Richard," I muttered under my breath. I'd driven out to his friend's place the second I'd received Howie's email, informing me of Denise's new offer (Thank you, Nina, and Google Maps, for helping decipher the address. If I lose my job maybe I can go work for TMZ and stalk celebrities out here.). Agents are supposed to keep their clients abreast of every single offer—and even every rejection—as they come in, and I wanted to be the one to deliver the good news that the initial offer had more than doubled. On the the drive over, I'd called Frank.

"This manuscript is a hot commodity," I'd said, brightly. "And what do you know? Your offer generated even more heat!" I held on to my perkiness even as a tricked out Rolls swerved into my lane and cut me off. I leaned on the horn and flicked the driver off. He actually smirked at me in his rearview mirror, and the rage was so great I saw spots.

"Josie!" Frank said, sounding exasperated. "Did you hear me? I asked how much more heat?"

"Frank!" I laughed lightly, pinning the phone between my cheek and shoulder so I could give that motherfucker the double finger. He gave me a snotty little wave before peeling off. It took every ounce of strength I had not to go on an expletive ridden tirade and instead say, with dignity, "You know I'm not allowed to say." When you have a pre-empt offer, like Richard did from Little, Brown, you’re technically not supposed to shop that offer by telling other publishers explicitly what you have and who gave it to you. It's okay to be vague and indicate the level a competing publisher needs to be at in order to play in the game, but it's strongly frowned upon to talk numbers.

Frank sighed. "I might be able to dig up another 50K more. Will that do it?"

"Dig deeper," I said, hoping I sounded like I was doing him a favor, and not the other way around. I needed Frank to believe that I had gotten the better offer, not a colleague of mine who was vying for my job, and that I just really wanted him, my old boss, my gruff, reluctant former mentor, to be the one to get this book. Yes, it was true that I did want Frank to have it, and I genuinely did believe he was the better editor for it over Denise, but my job also hinged on it.

This was my rough plan: If I could get Frank to 600,000, this thing would go to a bidding war. Frank and Denise would have to come back with an even better number than $600,000—and it wouldn't have to be much more, even thirty thousand would do it. Because once you're in bidding war territory, it's not necessarily about the number anymore. It becomes a sort of beauty contest between warring editors. I'd set up a time for Richard to speak to Frank, and Howie would set up a time for him to speak to Denise. Both editors would try and sell him on why they were the right man (or woman) for the job. As long as both Denise and Frank came in with comparable offers, the decision would ultimately fall to Richard, based on who he connected with more. The writer doesn't necessarily always go with the highest bid—sometimes the lower-bidding editor has a better marketing team or strategy, has netted a certain number of New York Times book reviews for his list of writers, or just gets the characters in a way the higher-bidding editor doesn't. I felt strongly that Frank, or an editor at Literatti, which boasted a more literary list of authors than Denise did at Little, Brown, was the right place for The Five. But because Little, Brown is so much more commercial than Literatti, they have deeper pockets. And if Richard connected with both Denise and Frank, the deciding factor would be who offered him the higher bid, which would likely be Little, Brown.

I was just about to give up and drive back to the office when I heard a laughter from behind the house. Curious, I crept along the edge of the property, which sloped down steeply before leveling out into the backyard, a small pool anchoring its center. Richard was sitting in a lounge chair, next to a woman who looked vaguely familiar but who I couldn't immediately place. She had a short, peroxide blonde pixie and she was wearing Dr. Marten boots even though it was almost ninety degrees out.

"Richard!" I called, so startled to see him that it came out ear-piercingly shrill.

Both Richard and the peroxide pixie chick swiveled in their chairs to look at me. Richard shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted. "Josie?"

"Where the hell have you been?" I demanded, starting down the steep incline to the backyard and realizing, too late, that it wasn't really walkable. I stumbled a few feet, caught myself while shrieking some gibberish combination of "Holy shit" and "Oh my God" (result: "Holy my shit." Brilliant.), then lost my footing again. My legs shot out straight in front of me, and I slid the rest of the way down the hill on my ass.

"Josie!" Richard half exclaimed, half laughed, jumping up from his the lounge chair and hurrying over to me. His face was pink from trying not to laugh too hard and mine was purple with humiliation. "You need to go through the house to get out here," he said, giving me his hand to help me up.

"Well, you weren't answering the door," I huffed as I stood, brushing dirt and leaves off my ass. I strained to look over my shoulder and saw that my favorite black work "slacks," as Nance always calls them, were caked in mud.

"Sorry," Richard said, "I didn't realize you wouldn't be able to hear the doorbell from out here. What are you doing here? How did you even find me all the way out"—he stopped and laughed. "Nina."

"Nina," I confirmed. I pinned my shoulder blades together and tried to recover my agent cool. "Anyway. I need to talk to you! You are never going to believe the offer that"—

"Wait," Richard said, sharply. "I want you to meet my friend first."

Richard led me over to the manic pixie looking girl and gestured to her. "Josie, this is Allison Emerson."

"Hi, Josie," Allison smiled, and I instantly knew who she was, because everywhere from Time to Variety to Forbes has profiled her over the last year. She was the daughter of Gary Emerson, billionaire studio exec, who, at twenty-eight years old, had started her own production company that has produced some of the most daringly visionary films of the last few years: Her, True Grit, and Zero Dark Thirty.

I mumbled a tortured hello, wishing I could melt into the earth. I couldn't believe freaking Allison Emerson had just witnessed me bite it down the hill, shrieking like a banshee, the picture of elegance and grace.

"Well," Allison said, and reached for her vintage Goyard tote slumped on the lounge chair, "I should be going. I've taken up enough of your time already."

"I'll walk you out," Richard said, and Allison shooed him away.

"I can see myself out," she said, and stood up on her tip toes to kiss Richard on the cheek. "Good to see you. I'm so proud of you."

Richard and I waited for her to climb the stairs to the back entrance of the house and shut the door behind her before speaking.

"How do you know"—I started at the same time Richard said, "I know Allison from..." We both stopped and laughed, awkwardly. I gestured at him to go on.

"I know Allison from high school," Richard said. "Her father is a friend of mine. Fortunately, she knows my father is an asshole so she doesn't base her opinion of me on what he says about me."

I brushed more dirt off my ass. "I can't believe you're friends with Allison Emerson."

"Well, I haven't spoken to her in almost ten years. But I just thought, why not send her the manuscript? See if she would be interested in buying the film rights?"

"Richard!" I said. "That's your agent's job."

Richard glanced out at the pool, winking turquoise beneath the mid-afternoon sun. "I'm not really sure who my agent is, Josie. Is it you? Is it William? Is it this Howie girl?"

"I know it's a little confusing right now," I said. "But who your agent is depends on who gets you the deal that makes you the most happy. So it could be Howie or me, it's up to you."

"Do you even want to be my agent?" Richard had been wearing sunglasses, but now he slid them on top of his head to study me closely. "It's like you can barely stand to be around me."

"I could put our personal differences aside to"—

Richard rolled his head back and groaned. "Fuck that. Don't agent me like this. Just talk to me like I'm Richard, and you're Josie."

"I want what's best for your book," I said, quietly, "I think I'm it."

Richard regarded me quietly. "I think you are too."

We stared at each other, meaningfully, for a few seconds before it became too much for me to handle. I cleared my throat and smiled. "Can I finally tell you why I'm here now?"

Richard reached out and picked a twig out of my hair. "Besides to make the grandest entrance I've ever seen?"

I gave him a little push on the chest. "Don't make fun or I won't tell you."

"Tell me what?" Richard asked.

"I think your book is going to go to a bidding war. The pot is up to $600,000 right now."

Richard didn't blink for so long I waved a hand in front of his face. "Did you hear what I said?"

Instead of answering, Richard scooped me up in his arms and let out a loud whoop. Everything happened so fast that I didn't even have time to scream—Richard's foot caught on the leg of the lounge chair and he stumbled closer to the pool. He teetered on the edge for what felt like a moment frozen in time before he fell in, taking me with him.

I didn't know what Frank would come back with, or if I'd end up as Richard's agent after all. All I knew is that I'd never seen Richard so happy, and it made me so happy it scared me.



Just a note: Thursday's post is probably going to go up a few hours late. I'm headed to Nantucket for the holiday weekend, and it takes a series of planes, trains, and automobiles to get there, during which I will be writing but will likely not have Internet access. I'll post and also tweet out as soon as I get out to the house and hooked up to the Wifi!